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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

CD appears as HDD and not in dev/cdrom, DVD support seems random, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.

This is a pretty good release of mepis because it includes all the latest software and drivers. Harder to get livecd to boot right then on 6.0, but other then that its great. This distro is noob friendly. However DVDs and CDs don't mount in the same places as in 6.0 and I get an error, however they are still usable. Just in different locations. Beryl is a nice touch and everything works. However Beryl does have some problems, luckily it is optional and normal KDE is rock solid. Beryl is integrated nicely but you cannot depend on it. Some windows randomly crash and Bluefish editor is unusable if you show tips on startup so you need to go into KDE and uncheck it then retry... Minor annoyances. I also cannot play mixed content/audio cds that I bought and The harddrives don't show up on the desktop unless a CD is inserted. Crossover works well and synaptic is amazing! But as with most noob distros the community is less knowlegable and lacking. The community also doesn't like to think that Windows is better in any way, even when it comes to ease of use; which it obviously is superior for. CD mounting, lack of hard drives without media inserted and inability to play audio tracks of mixed audio cds aside MEPIS is great.

Well another good Mepis Distro as usual, Beryl rocks out of the BOX but I guess we are all noobs to Beryl, I ain't seen any of the problems that the other review had, SimplyMepis does not come with Kaffeine this time around but gimp is back and I guess all one CD distros are really out of space now. This distro is one of the best out of the box as the other are too true towards open source and mepis comes with some small amount of property software but the a gen I hear Ubuntu does too and SimplyMepis has to be said is easier on the noob as it has those drivers that others wont give you like the Nvidia driver, this can be time conusming to some and there are other thing like media codecs JAVA as well it's easy to see from this why SimplyMepis is easier, and the best part using Ubuntu software with Apt-Get, but look at it closely that where the similarity's end, and don't for get SimplyMepis uses it's own fairly modified Linux kernel, It has it's own modified KDE which has not come from Kubuntu. I would diffidently give this distro a spin and see what you can get from it, I'd say don't let this one simply pass you by. There now is a 64-bit and 32-bit SimplyMepis. Their is also a podcast from the founder him self all about SimplyMepis.

Lots of drivers, includes useful software, easy to install, includes Beryl which is amazing

Cons:

Generally a bad community where the purpace is not to help people but to bash microsoft for no reason, HORRIBLE device recognition. Doesn't know I have a master CD driver and one of my harddrives is AWOL in Mepis, does not dual boot with vista

Mepis 6.5 has since been updated to 6.502 to fix some of the cons I mentioned other then the bad community. But when trying to get help you are probably more likely to get a reply like: "Linux is less user friendly then windows, Windows installs viruses automatically. With Wine its not even certain it will work"

But the software is mostly brilliant. Beryl automatically working is great but its really annoying not being able to use one CD drive and only have a slow dvd burner and one hard drive.

I have used latest versions of ubuntu, mandriva, pclinuxos, mepis, vector, mint, and sabayon within the past month. I am not a power user --- basic internet, office, and media tasks, so the last thing I want is aggravation. Mepis was the only distro that connected my laptop without any intervention on my part. All the others presented various problems one way or another.
It is possible that other distros are better for power users who do not mind taking the time to resolve various issues, but only pclinuxos comes as close in ease of use.

I have found SimplyMEPIS 6.5 to be at least as good, if not superior, to the previous releases of SimplyMEPIS. Do note that while Beryl is available, it is put there more or less as a technology review than as a stable instance of software. Most other software available on MEPIS is conservative and is almost sure to work.

For me, I have a Dell Dimension 4100 desktop with a Pentium III 996 MHz processor and 256 MB of RAM. SimplyMEPIS 6.0 has long been my main desktop on that system. I've installed SimplyMEPIS 6.5 on that box, but for older hardware, not that much has really changed.

I have another box, however, and it is a 2.7 GHz box with 1 GB of RAM. For that box I can use advanced graphics and other features - yes, it has a faster and more capable graphics card, though I do not remember offhand whether it is an on board Intel graphics card or an ATI card. The Dell definitely has an old NVIDIA TNT Riva 64 card.

Anyway, what I've always liked about MEPIS is that it simply works, right out of the box, little, if any tweaking required. From time to time, I do change things to suit my preferences, but the good news is that I do not HAVE to do these things; they are merely convenience and appearance changes, whereas with many other systems it is necessary to make one to five changes just to get the entire system to work cohesively as a desktop environment. MEPIS just simply does it - SimplyMEPIS. Give this one a TEN. I bought it, even though I had already downloaded a copy. Figured Warren Woodford earned his pay!

I found this to be one of the better livecd distros I have come across. I wanted to install on my new desktop but I could not get it to read my video card. I have downloaded about 9 livecd distros. Only two work with my desktop video card, the others will not read my video card.

sandmannc40, I found this to be one of the better livecd distros I have come across. I wanted to install on my new desktop but I could not get it to read my video card. I have downloaded about 9 livecd distros. Only two work with my desktop video card, the others will not read my video card.

Mepis guides...
www.mepisguides.com/

If you have on-board video then it should boot... If you have added a modern Video card... then please read the guides...

Nvidia or ATI?

I have enjoyed the 64-bit version of 6.5.02 since May, and am still using it with a 21 inch wide screen LCD monitor with on-board video as I wait for the 64-bit version of simplyMepis 7 to go final...

I have side by side AMD X2 systems to compare the beta and 6.5.02. I started with beta2 and it has been rock solid all the way thought RC1.

I am downloading RC2 today... It appears the simplyMepis7 is close to going final...

My hd crashed and I had to install an old and small one as an interrim solution til I got a new and bigger hd. I made the plunge and got rid of Windows and "powershopped" Linux distros for a few weeks: MEPIS had by far the most slick and polished GUI and it rocked in hardware recognition - it just worked with no or only few tweaks.
But when trying to tinker with this and that I never got very far - it was close enough to look like Ubuntu, but not quite. And the help function (forums and howto's etc) just didn't cut it for a newbee like me.
Sadly I had to let it go.